Fixing Thief's rope arrow mechanics

[hexhunter]

Firstly I'd like to say that I am very thankful to you for creating this great looking mod, I haven't played the demo levels yet because I'm not sure that they'll work on my laptop, but I can't wait to give it a try.

 

I just wanted to bring up the way that you use rope arrows in the thief games, they've always been difficult to use, if you jump on at the bottom and mantle off at the top that's fine, but trying to get on at the top and silently drop off at the bottom has always been an issue. And if you hit the rope with to much speed it seems you just go flying off.

 

For all I know you may have cured this already, but my idea was to have the rope grabbable by a different means rather than just jumping. From what I've heard you have 2 different use keys, maybe one of them could be used to grab hold of the rope, then you could just walk over the edge (if you are descending) and there wouldn't be any risk of bouncing off of the arrow and not getting a hold on the rope itself.

 

Other ways you could use this could be firing an arrow into something in the centre of a roof-top, then taking hold of the rope and jumping over the side, or, something I think you already tried, firing it into something light, grabbing the rope and pulling it towards you, you could use it for pulling drawbridges down and things, maybe even pulling levers from a distance.

 

So again, thank you, I may even try building my own mission for once.

 

- Deus X Machina

[New Horizon]

I just wanted to bring up the way that you use rope arrows in the thief games, they've always been difficult to use.....

 

If you haven't tried our demo missions yet, it's somewhat premature to be telling us to make them easier to use..don't you think?

 

Our rope arrows are already easier to use, and our coders are continuing to make them better.

[Mortem Desino]

pleasure to meet you, hexhunter.

 

I've been tweaking the rope arrows for well over 6 months now, and I agree with some of those grievences with "Thief"'s rope arrows. For now, you must be in the air to grab onto a rope (usually either by jumping or falling and colliding with it.) This, by itself, makes it so much more reliable than "thief"s method.

 

Also, our when our ropes shake or move too fast, you'll lose your grip and fly off. I made a test map in which I threw myself over a big stone wall by attaching a counterweight to a rope and flying! There's probably a way to make your cases work in a map, as well. Almost anything is possible with Doom 3 scripting!

[Diego]

If you haven't tried our demo missions yet, it's somewhat premature to be telling us to make them easier to use..don't you think?

 

He's merely pointing the fact that in the *originals* is hard. Playing the demos isn't a prerequisite for suggesting a better system (not to mention there is no rope arrow in the demos) Sometimes fans (like myself) sound like we are demanding things.. but we are only excited

 

Btw - probably not very relevant - but I'm working on a game based on rope dynamics. It's a totally abstract game, but I was inspired by the thief rope. Maybe some feature I implemented, such as the double rope, inspires you guys

here's a link to the thread in the 3dgs forums: link

[Komag]

But there are rope arrows in Thief's Den, and one can spawn them in St. Lucia to try them out if one was particularly interested in how they work. Making suggestions is fine, yes, but I think the point is that if he is so interested or concerned, it just makes sense to see if we have already addressed the issue.

 

(nice little vid there, looks like it could be a fun little game, has potential!)

[Diego]

But there are rope arrows in Thief's Den

 

Oh right!.. I completely forgot about that!

 

I'm still with st lucia in my mind

[hexhunter]

Firstly, thanks for awnsering my Q's.

 

But there are rope arrows in Thief's Den, and one can spawn them in St. Lucia to try them out if one was particularly interested in how they work. Making suggestions is fine, yes, but I think the point is that if he is so interested or concerned, it just makes sense to see if we have already addressed the issue.

 

I've watched most of the video's, including your moving rope test and I see what the game is capable of, and as Diego said, as a Thief fan I am very excited. The thing I can't get from the video's, or the wiki are the basics of interaction.

 

I like what Mortem said about Rope Arrows, and I'm sure as the game develop's their uses will expand.

 

I can't wait to get Doom 3 but my laptop's going back to teh store, so all I can do is wish you the best of luck and hope that this mod gets the attention that it deserves from the big FM makers...

[Ishtvan]

I've watched most of the video's, including your moving rope test and I see what the game is capable of, and as Diego said, as a Thief fan I am very excited. The thing I can't get from the video's, or the wiki are the basics of interaction.

It's pretty simple. You jump on, you stick to it. You're more likely to stick to it if you're looking straight at it (this lets you jump past a rope if you don't want to stick to it). Once on the rope, if you hit jump again you'll jump off in the direction you're looking, if you hit crouch you'll drop straight down, the mantle key mantles off, etc. You can sort of "slide" down by tapping crouch.

 

To swing on the rope, you can hit a direction key + attack. Attacks are disabled while climbing anyway, so we use the attack button for swinging.

[hexhunter]

I didn't realise you could swing either, from what I read you guys decided to leave that out, I'll certainly wan't to try that out, that solves some annoying issues in some of the more vertical FMs I've played...

[Crispy]

I didn't realise you could swing either, from what I read you guys decided to leave that out

Ishtvan was bored one day.

 

(A few of our neatest features have resulted from programmers needing a break from "more important" tasks... AIs using elevators, for example.)

[Ishtvan]

Ishtvan was bored one day.

 

(A few of our neatest features have resulted from programmers needing a break from "more important" tasks... AIs using elevators, for example.)

 

It actually took all of 10 minutes and 48 lines of code (mostly figuring out which direction the player wants to swing). It's neat when you realize that all the tools are already there to do something cool (ragdoll rope, ability to apply forces to ragdolls), and all it takes is a tiny bit of effort.

[Diego]

I don't know how flexible is the rope physics but, can I swing "Tarzan style" with it?

[Komag]

You can swing a little, nothing like fly through the jungle though, more like "sway" a few feet back and forth to help reach the ledge or whatever.

[Ishtvan]

If you drive it at its resonant frequency you can swing pretty far.

 

Kind of like swinging on a swing-set as a kid, you have to kick at the right time to get going farther.

[Diego]

Nice! :]

 

Making the rope start on the player's hand - instead of simply descending - would be problematic, I assume.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, tried it, it was hard. The hardest part was trying to get it to switch from in hand mode to midair mode, due to the functions supposed to detect if you're in midair not working as advertised.